From Local Roots to Global Reach: A Liberal Vision for Universities

Chair: Jennie Rigg; Aide: Alison Jenner; Hall Aide: Chris Maines

Submitted by: 12 party members
Mover: Ian Sollom MP (Spokesperson for Universities and Skills)
Summation: Sarah Anderson

Conference believes that:

1. British universities are a world-leading export, attracting global talent and driving growth across the UK, particularly in regional economies.
2. As hubs of innovation, universities are central to any credible strategy on research and development.
3. Greater integration between Further Education (FE) and Higher Education (HE) can open new avenues for learners to access higher education and diversify university revenue streams.
4. Students deserve a fair deal on finance that allows them to participate meaningfully in university life regardless of background.
5. The challenges facing the sector require a sustained, multi-pronged approach beyond the next decade.

Conference, however, notes with concern that:

1. The failure to uprate maintenance loan eligibility thresholds has gradually eroded the level of financial support available to students, with over 40 per cent living on less than £100 a month.
2. Frozen student loan repayment thresholds are on track to reach parity with minimum wage by 2031.
3. Labour's National Insurance hike and international student levy will cost the sector over £1 billion annually, with just 1 per cent of the revenue raised to be reinvested into maintenance grants.
4. Short-term, fragmented research and innovation funding limits the UK's ability to commercialise new technologies.

Conference therefore supports the following calls on the Government, taken from the spokesperson's paper From Local Roots to Global Reach: A Liberal Vision for Universities:

1. Reform student finance and support, by:
   1. Reintroducing maintenance grants on top of existing student loans, aiming to cover 35 per cent of undergraduate students, rising to 50 per cent when public finances allow.
   2. Unfreezing and uprating parental income thresholds for student finance applications.
   3. Unfreezing graduate repayment thresholds and working towards making them fairer, while exploring options to extend improved terms to existing graduates, prioritising those on lower and middle incomes.
   4. Exploring how student maintenance loans could be more flexible based on regional cost-of-living pressures.
   5. Writing off a portion of student debt for those working in key NHS, education, and social service roles after 10 years of service, with further write-offs after 15 years.
2. Ensure the financial sustainability of universities, by:
   1. Reversing the damaging national insurance hike and international student levy.
   2. Exploring a variety of cost-saving measures such as student loan payment reprofiling, shared-service reform and interest-free loans for internal restructuring.
   3. Renegotiating the cost of private-equity-owned academic journals, with a commitment to support a new, open-source academic journal collection if cost reductions remain unsatisfactory.
   4. Working towards ending pension inequality between pre- and post-1992 institutions.
   5. Protecting regional subject diversity so students who cannot relocate retain access to a broad range of subjects locally.
3. Strengthen skills development and employer engagement, by:
   1. Doubling the number of degree apprenticeships in skill shortage areas and reserving at least 50 per cent for these for students from low-income households.
   2. Encouraging universities to embed employer-identified skills as assessed components throughout undergraduate curricula.
   3. Designing a 'Stackable Funding' mechanism to allow employers to fund modular learning within an academic pathway, combined with Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE) grants.
4. Expand modular learning and lifelong learning opportunities, by:
   1. Ensuring regulatory oversight to manage and promote collaboration between the FE and HE sectors, working towards a unified tertiary approach where colleges and universities have the flexibility to share facilities and co-deliver courses.
   2. Exploring credit transfer models between colleges and universities to allow students to flexibly design studies across multiple institutions.
   3. Encouraging flexibility in module delivery to enable mature learners and those from non-traditional backgrounds to access modular education delivered by universities.
5. Strengthen the UK's research and innovation ecosystem, by:
   1. Increasing research budgets with inflation and moving towards multi-year funding settlements.
   2. Quintupling proof of concept funding to £200 million across five years.
   3. Creating a network of regional innovation centres across the UK, ensuring every nation and major English region can support university-industry collaboration with state-of-the-art research facilities.
   4. Aiming to restore the 80 per cent commitment for full economic cost recovery of research.
6. Empower academics, students, and research teams to innovate and commercialise research, by:
   1. Introducing government-backed seed funding loans for companies borne from university research, and expanding the definition of commercialisation so university-derived SMEs and student startups are eligible.
   2. Changing visa rules to allow PhD and MRes students to found startups during their studies and ensuring they are eligible for proof of concept funding.
   3. Developing a standardised national framework for negotiating intellectual property between universities and staff, with the long-term ambition of enabling academics and researchers to hold full rights to the intellectual property arising from their research.
7. Strengthen UK universities' global leadership by:
   1. Pushing for UK qualifications to be recognised in the EU on a semi-automatic basis, with the ambition to make this automatic in key sectors.
   2. Enhancing university teaching standards by expanding teacher training opportunities through HE Fellowships and other routes.
   3. Creating a single governmental contact point for universities concerned about foreign interference pressures, and developing guidance for universities to combat foreign interference on campus.

Applicability: Federal except for 1. , 3., 4., and 5. which are England only.

The FCC has agreed to make the following drafting amendments to the motion:

After iv) (line 27), insert:

v) There remain significant representation gaps within UK universities, including the underrepresentation of women and ethnic minority groups among professors, with Black academics particularly underrepresented.

Delete 1. c) (lines 38-41) and insert:

c) Cancelling the Chancellor’s unfair freeze to graduate repayment thresholds, and instead guaranteeing that they rise in line with earnings every year.

d) Launching a Royal Commission to build cross-party consensus on comprehensive reform of the student loan system, looking at ways to cut the interest rates on loans, cap total interest paid by graduates, ensure the repayment framework is genuinely progressive, and protect graduates – especially those on low and middle incomes – from unfairly high monthly repayment rates.

After 6. c) (line 110), insert:

d) Require universities to work towards eliminating the underrepresentation of Black professors, certain other ethnicities and those with a disability, and to make regular reports on their progress.

Amendment One

Submitted by: West Suffolk
Mover: Andy McGowan
Summation: Jacquie Bell

Delete D. (lines 10-12) and insert: 

D. Students deserve a fair deal on finance that allows them to participate meaningfully in university life regardless of background or factors such as caring responsibilities.

After 1. e) (line 46) insert:

f) Improving financial support for unpaid carers wanting to access higher education, through measures such as:

i) Abolishing the 21-hour rule for Carers Allowance which makes carers choose between caring or learning.

ii) Enabling carers who are distance learners to access maintenance loans if they are unable to attend a campus-based university because of their caring responsibilities.

Amendment Two

Submitted by: LGBT+ Liberal Democrats
Mover: Fraser Graham
Summation: Charley Hasted

After iv) (line 26), insert:

v) Estranged students under 25 are only considered independent after 12 months of no contact, and any contact with their family, whether wanted or not, resets that clock, requiring them to obtain financial information for student finance purposes.

vi) Care leavers and estranged students are placed at a significant disadvantage by having to find and fund accommodation during holiday periods, a time when many of their peers can return to family homes but which many accommodation contracts do not cover; in addition, lack of a guarantor can make finding private
accommodation impossible.

In 1. b) (line 36), delete ‘parental’.

After 1. e) (Line 46) insert:

f) Allowing students to request a rapid reassessment of their maintenance entitlement if their circumstances change significantly within the academic year, for instance due to estrangement, moving house or changing institution, and if not doing so would leave them at financial disadvantage.

Amendment Three

Submitted by: Liberal Democrat Education Association
Mover: Rob Herd

In 1. e) (lines 44-46), delete the words ‘...key NHS, education, and social service roles..’ and insert:

‘… key NHS roles and emergency services, education, the armed forces and social service roles…’

Mover: 7 minutes; summation 4 minutes; all other speakers: 3 minutes. For eligibility and procedure for speaking in this debate, see pages 10-11 of the agenda. You can submit a speaker's card online here or in person.

The deadline for amendments to this motion is 13.00 Monday 2 March; you can submit amendments online here, see pages 9–10 of the agenda for more information. Those selected for debate will be printed in Conference Extra and Saturday’s Conference Daily. The deadline for requests for separate votes is 09.00 Thursday 12 March; see page 9 of the agenda for more information.